On-board photovoltaic (PV) energy generation is starting to be deployed in a variety of vehicles while still discussing its benefits. Integration requirements vary greatly for the different vehicles. Numerous types of PV cells and modules technologies are ready or under development to meet the challenges of this demanding sector. A comprehensive review of fast-changing vehicle-integrated photovoltaic (VIPV) products and lightweight PV cell and module technologies adapted for integration into electric vehicles (EVs) is presented in this paper. The number of VIPV projects and/or products is on a steady rise, especially car-based PV integration. Our analysis differentiates projects according to their development stage and technical solutions. The advantages and drawbacks of various PV cell and module technologies are discussed, in addition to recommendations for wide-scale deployment of the technologies.

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In order to improve primary energy saving and reduce greenhouse emissions, vehicle integrated photovoltaics have an ongoing interest. Studies on the benefits from vehicle solar roof, which take into account all the losses and the monthly variation in different climate conditions, are required. Therefore, we developed a simulation tool of the mileage covered by VIPV. This tool takes into account various use profiles and different characteristics of the vehicles and of the PV system. Focusing on city bus, simulations show that many parameters influence the outputs of the model, mainly: the geographic location, the shading losses, the electric architecture and the battery saturation. With projections of the technology in 2030, VIPV cover up to 9739 km annual mileage. This represents up to 24 % of the total distance. For the best month, it can get up to 47 km/day. For average Europe case, with 30 % shading losses, the VIPV cover only 3711 km annual mileage. The upgrade of the technology from 2022 to 2030 improves the benefits of VIPV by approximately 34 %. Life cycle assessment of solar city bus shows neutral to high gains. The carbon footprint is up to 28 T CO2-equivalent avoided emissions on 20 years lifespan.